Chatbots have evolved to become more than just a nifty feature that is meant to attract attention and publicity. The complex variety of tasks performed by robot chats have made them suitable for various business applications today, and younger generations love them.
Seriously. 60% of millennials report that they have used chatbots and more than three-quarters of them regard those experiences as positive. A large number of consumers prefer to interact with chatbots instead of humans when their queries are simple.
What are the Advantages of Chatbots?
Modern customers want quick, on point, and specific answers without engaging in a full-blown conversation with a human representative of a business, and chatbots are well equipped to deliver on these expectations because they are:
1. Always active
Chatbots don't need to rest, never get sick or go on vacations. They can happily engage in conversations with your potential and existing customers 24/7 and minimise the time it takes your business to make them feel welcomed, listen to their wants and needs, and respond appropriately.
2. Easily scalable
Chatbots can easily scale both up and down without affecting the fixed costs of your business. It doesn't matter if it's peak season or a result of the intensified promotion, chatbots can meet the increased demand, and offload you and your staff by handling repeatable customer enquiries.
3. Less prone to errors
Bots don't get tired, have a very good memory, can easily recall details of a conversation that has taken place a long time ago, and combine it with other pieces of information in an instant. They have been designed to enhance customer experience by responding with speed and accuracy.
Top 6 Business Benefits of Chatbots
Chances are you’ve interacted with a chatbot or two, but what you may not realise are the benefits of utilising a chatbot for your own business. From answering common questions to increasing customer loyalty, chatbots easily solve many business problems and give you a significant edge over the competition. While the applications are numerous, here are eight of the most powerful ways they can fuel business growth.
1. Reduce Operational Costs
Chatbots can help your business accelerate its growth by enabling you to reduce your operational or other costs and shrink the number of employee hours dedicated to low-level tasks.
According to IBM, businesses spend $1.3 trillion on 265 billion customer service calls each year. Chatbots can help with your cost reduction by answering common questions, scheduling appointments, sending appointment reminders, and offering coupons and promotions.
They can also be utilised to generate suitable business opportunities, as well as gather feedback and reviews, and send “thank you” messages. Chatbots deliver savings through a reduction in response time, as well as a significant decrease in the number of human hours required.
2. Helps to Make Your Business Notably Different
Unlike people, chatbots never sleep, which means they can improve customer experience by providing your clients with reliable, effective, 24/7 customer support throughout the year.
Chatbots provide you with a competitive advantage by utilising the same consistent, intelligent, and friendly conversational tone across all platforms. You can customise your chatbots to recognise and address customers by name, as well as mention recent interactions and appointments. The sense of being remembered and recognised for their needs, wants, and preferences customises the experience and help your customers feel like the valued clients they are.
In addition, automating online interactions using chatbots will free up your team to improve human touch and focus on urgent situations or in-person clients and customers. Chatbots can handle everything from phone inquiries to conversations on messaging platforms and can facilitate intelligent conversations across channels, thereby allowing you and your team to improve their subject matter expertise while they provide superior customer service.
3. Maximise Your Staff Skills and Improve Their Well-being
Customer interactions can take a toll on your team, and chatbots can significantly lighten that load as they improve the sales cycle. By answering common questions and helping visitors to navigate your website and its offerings, chatbots play an important role in allowing your employees to focus on higher-value contributions and augment their unique human skills.
Whether serving as the first line of contact, answering simple questions, or prioritising and forwarding important queries that require a human touch, chatbots can effectively handle many tasks while maintaining communication standards. In turn, this reduces stress, improves the levels of employee satisfaction, increases employee engagement, and empowers you and your staff to utilise your experience or leverage your emotional intelligence to resolve more pressing customer service issues.
4. Boost Customer Retention and Build Loyalty
Customers love personalised service, and a chatbot that greets them by name and quickly recounts details from their last conversation hits all those buttons. Conversational AI chatbots can provide the kind of customer service that mimics the feeling of walking into a store and encountering an employee who remembers them, critical for both customer loyalty and retention.
These interactions create fond feelings, but they are also time-efficient. By following up to schedule a future appointment, chatbots improve the booking experience, which in turn can lead to enhanced communication and improved referral rates. Chatbots can collect testimonials and keep your customers engaged through relevant social media interactions, in effect promoting your business for free.
5. Fuel Continuous Business Improvement and Innovation
In the past, companies relied on surveys and questionnaires to glean information about customer needs, wants, and issues. These days, they can gather valuable insights into trends, experiences, and frustrations by collecting data from chatbot conversations.
By using chatbots to monitor customer satisfaction and provide conversation metrics, you can more easily adapt to customer expectations, as well as discover new markets and opportunities. These insights can then inform your strategies and highlight areas ripe for continuous improvement measures.
6. Future-Proof Your Business
As social media platforms emerge and expand, one of the advantages of chatbots is in helping you meet your customers where they choose to interact. Along with addressing questions and issues that come in through more traditional funnels like your website, investing in chatbot technology early will make sure you’re there for them wherever the conversation occurs.
This allows for omnichannel experiences including everything from Facebook Messenger and Instagram to wearable devices, smart speakers, and other home devices, and even virtual reality, augmented reality, and interactive cars.
It’s increasingly challenging to predict which campaign, channel, or touchpoint might bring in new customers. Adaptable chatbot technology can help you to future-proof tomorrow’s omnichannel experience by providing a seamless, hyper-personalised experience even when device switching. Whether responding on a single channel or addressing multiple demands, chatbots can help you prepare for the present as well as the future.
Chatbots Help Your Business Grow
From reducing your team’s workload to streamlining a myriad of business challenges, chatbots can help take your company to the next level. Chatbots help you to minimise costs and improve productivity, empowering you and your staff to enjoy increased job satisfaction while you provide enhanced customer experiences and fuel business growth.